NOvemBEER

No reviews this month, as for reasons historically unknown, I always have November as a beer free month. Maybe it's because I've overdone it in boring October, or maybe it's because I'm saving myself for the normally party laden December. It's a hard slog, but I feel better at the end of it. Plus it gives me a chance to catch up on all those new wines I haven't had the chance to taste. I didn't say it was an ALCOHOL FREE month did I?!

December will be good, because I've already got quite a few beers waiting for me to review. People seem to know that November is beer free, because this is the time they come and give me some beers to try.

I've got the following:
Sierra Nevade Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Porter
Sierra Nevada Torpedo
Svyturys Baltijos
Brouwerij'tij Plzen
Browerij'tij Natte
Chakra Premium
Malmgard Dinkel
Malmgard Belge
Malmgard Blond Ale
And hopefully some Brewdogs from fellow beer buff Enn.

I'm also looking to bring some new beers and ciders to Estonia in the next couple of weeks, so no doubt they'll send me crate loads of the stuff next week, just to make the final 20 days of November finger itchingly difficult. Where's that red wine?

See you in December (if I last that long!).

Abbot Ale Reserve

We've got this on offer at the moment - 3.20€ for a 500ml bottle. I usually have a limited amount of this beer on sale during Christmas, but I thought as we've got some strong German beer on tap (Salvator 7.9%) I thought it would only be fair if we had an English offering too.

This beer started it's life as a seasonal, limited edition beer from Greene King. They used to bring it out when the nights got darker as a winter special - and if you've read my previous blog, then that's the time of year when people usually start to look for a beer with a bit of "oomph". It was first available in cask, and then bottle. It became so popular, that it's now available bottled all year round.  I don't really agree with this, as this is going down the mainstream route. We should be able to look forward to different beers as the seasons change - not have them all year round. They lose their identity, their appeal - and in my opinion, their occasionality. Regular Abbot Ale coming in at 5% is fine for me. Why would I want to drink a 6.5% version in the middle of summer?

I'm probably going to get complaints, or should I word that, requests, that I stock Abbot Ale Reserve all year round. My answer will be a firm no. Drink bar is all about providing something different. People are coming into the bar this October and asking what Octoberfest specials we've got. These are the same people who came in for our summer beers, and these will be the same people who will be looking on the blackboard for our special winter warmers. If I make our feature beers available all year round, then I might as well just rip out the taps and offer only two beers - all year round.

Here's the review:

Abbot Ale Reserve (ratebeer.com rating 53) is the 6.5% version of their flagship English bitter. It's got a more powerful aroma, taste and alcohol kick.

As you can see from the picture, this is a full bodied, dark amber beer. Great moutfeel owing to that huge creamy had. Aroma gather up your nose in the form of banana, malt, caramel, alcohol and roasted barley. A hint of orange peel too if you sniff hard enough.

It's quite bitter  - this is due to it being late hopped with fuggles, and this bitterness lasts throughout the taste. It's also quite malty. I'm thinking fruitcake when I drink this - lots of raisin and caramel flavours.

The alcohol taste and aroma is also present throughout - you know you are drinking a strong bitter, but due to the hops also being there, it doesn't have that strong ethanol taste which can dominate and ulitmately ruin a beer.

This would be great with food. Probably a nice toffee pudding, or something equally sweet and unhealthy. Christmas cake too would be a winner  - as would be a nice slice of strong English cheddar.

All in all a pretty good beer. Nothing outstanding...as it's a Greene King beer. They don't go in for massive flavour profiles, because they are a mainstream brewer. It makes a nice change though, and is certainly recommended.

Ratebeer.com

You might be suprised to find out that I am not the only person in the world reviewing beer. A few others do it too.

The one I like, and is the beer anorak website of choice is ratebeer.com.  It's got pretty much every beer under the sun reviewed by likeminded opinionated ego stroked people like me. Check it out and add your own reviews. Or copy and paste mine.

All the beers I'm reviewing on this site will now have a Ratebeer Review (RR™) score in the review so you can gauge what other people think about this beer and not just me.

The nights are drawing in...

It's getting darker earlier. A little colder too. And with that - all the outdoor terraces are being packed away, the beaches are empty and an ice cold beer kind of loses its attraction.

You see, the choice of beer you choose often has some sort of "occasionality". Depending on what you are doing or where you are, or even what type of weather it is, usually dictates what beer you go for.

Spent all day on the beach in the hot sun - grab a four pack of something Mexican. Not because Mexico is also hot - but because the beer they produce (Sol, Corona, Bohemia, Negra etc)  generally are beers that are very light in taste (Sol and Corona contain no hops at all) and are best enjoyed ice cold. Hops provide bitterness, bitterness provides flavour, flavour gets in the way of refreshement. So to get to the heart of refreshment, the brewer removes all hops and recommends that the beer is served at 2-4 degrees in temperature. The colder you chill a beer, the less flavour it will have. It's all to do with the essential oil in the hops.  I always use an example in my beer lectures when there are women present. I tell them when they get home to put their bottle of Chanel in the fridge, open it up in the morning and take a smell - nothing. Only once it starts getting back to room temperature will the essential oils in their perfume start to come to life. Same with beer. English beer is traditionally served at room temperature because you want to taste all the flavours that are in a good hoppy ale.

It's this same fact that you probably wouldn't reach for an English ale when you are on the beach or in a nightclub. It's got too much flavour (if served at the correct temperature) and it gets in the way of your primary reason for drinking it - refreshment (beach), or to get drunk (nightclub). It's a drink to savour and drink slowly.

Guinness had a problem with younger people associating it's product with being too "chewy" and heavy. They didn't like the fact that in some night venues, people were only drinking one or two Guinness before switching to the easier drinking alcopops. Guinness realised that if they reduced the serving  temperature, then it would take away some of the flavour, it would make it easier to drink. Easier to drink means more volumes. More volumes means more profits. Guinness Extra Cold was born. 

Nice bit of marketing that.

So what do you drink when it's cold, rainy and downright miserable outside? You want something warming (a cup of tea?), you want something with some nice flavours (a bowl of soup?), you want something that effectively gives you a big hug, puts a glow in your cheeks and reminds you that it's much more sensible to stay in the pub than venture outdoors (a dark beer?). Yes - a dark beer. A stout. A porter. They are really all the same. Stout means strong and full bodied - just like the liquid and flavours inside your glass. Porter comes from the fact that it was the luggage boys drink of choice back in the 1800's. Spend all day transporting peoples luggage from train to hotel, and you are certainly going to give your name to that drink you sit in front of and relax afer being on your feet for close to fourteen hours. It's a style of beer that is meant to be appreciated. Often full of smokey, burnt, coffee and caramel flavours, this beer should never be served straight from the fridge. Its got too much in it to be masked by temperature.  Think of Christmas and you'll probably think of a porter (unless you are under twelve where you will probably be thinking about what Santa is going to bring you). Christmas time is a great period for dark beers as the flavours we associate with Christmas - spices such cinnamon, cloves, oranges and such like are actually used in brewing these dark beers. These flavours all give that lovely warm aroma and make us feel all cuddly. They are also normally pretty high in alcohol - so there's that glow to your cheeks.  It's the one time of year where I actually look forward to Saku or A Le Coq's new seasonal introduction. Last years A Le Coq's Christmas porter was excellent - full of aromatic spices and hints of vanilla. Saku's too.

Now we've established that one of the things that can dictate what sort of beer you drink is the weather, I've looked out of the window and decided to open a bottle of  Belhavens McCallums Stout.
Here's the review:

(Ratebeer.com Rating: 44). It's a Scottish stout coming in at 4.1% abv. Not that strong in alcohol, so will have to drink a few to get the "glow". Pours a very dark ruby red brown. Creamy head with a good malt aroma and sweetish sugary afternotes.

The sugar is in the taste also. A much sweeter type of stout/porter than you'd normally find. Very litle taste of hops of roasted malt. But that doesn't make it bad. In fact, it makes it very drinkable. It's soft with a little salty taste to it. Mouthfeel is ok, maybe a little thin and oily with not much lacing on the glass.

Not bad. Don't drink this expecting a Guinness or a Czech dark lager. It is an ale, but it's a very mild one. In fact, this could be indentified more as a traditional English mild rather than a Scottish stout. If you compare it next to what we've got in Drink Bar: Entire Stout (UK), X-Porter (FIN), Krusovice dark (CZ), Budvar dark (CZ), Meantime Coffee Porter (UK), then although it doesn't compete on flavour, it does compete on drinkability - and offers something a bit milder than the others.  I'd drink this during a rainy spell rather than when it's snowing and -21 degrees. And looking out of the window now, I think I'm going to have another one.

Trashy Blonde

This is the beer that gets most laughs because of it's name. "Is it aimed at women?" someone asked me. I'm not sure I'd aim that phrase at many women I know. Or don't know for that matter.  What is it with beers supposedly aimed at women? Just because it's fruity, or low in alcohol, or mentions a hair colour, then people automatically think women will like it. Personally, I find nothing more attractive than a woman supping an ale or stout from a pint glass - two things women aren't supposed to do. Women are supposed to drink beer like this: http://feministing.com/2011/09/02/finally-a-beer-just-for-women/   Which on first glance looks good and fun, until you read the marketing blurb "it contains less carbonisation and less bitterness". They might aswell say that it contains no flavour, has no calories and is quite similar to water. In fact, just call it water.

Women should be able to drink whatever they want. They've got the same tastebuds as us men, and in fact have got a little more going for them then their male drinkers. When I worked for Coors Brewers, we had a tasting panel that met every Monday morning to taste the batch of beers that were about to be released. They had to decide if they were worthy of leaving the brewery that afternoon. Of course, everybody wanted that job. Unfortunately, that job was only available to women. Not because women have better taste buds (or employment records), but because women are more eloquent. Generally if a man tries a beer he'll declare that "it's the best beer I have ever tasted". If a man tries a bad beer he'll declare "it's the worst beer I have ever tasted". "Give me another to make sure".  However, give a woman a good beer and she'll be using words like citrus, floral, soft, malty, zingy etc etc. A bad beer gets a similar treatment - albeit in the negative sense. So not only should we be giving more beer to women, but (and I never thought I'd hear myself say this), but we should also be listening to them more. Only when it comes to beer of course.

Here's the review:

Trashy Blonde (ratebeer.com rating 86) is described as a "Statuesque fruity ale". Fruity - there's that word again. Coupled with the fact that it's 4.1%,  I approached this Brewdog with the view that it's the lesser of it's two other stablemates.
WRONG!  It poured out of the glass like a block of ice cream, the large creamy head almost falling out of the glass. The smell - and here's where I will gladly use the F word - is of...not cherry, not raspberry or the usual fruit beers we've got used to in Estonia - but of passion fruit. This comes from the hops that they use - a combination of American and New Zealand. It's dark golden in colour - which I suppose where it gets its name from.

A real suprise. It's much more bitter than I thought it would be. Really pale ale tasting - with hops at the forefront, then the malt, then back to the hops on the finish. It's the fruit in the hops that is the real killer taste for me though. Not as zesty as Punk, but really fresh and grassy and nice and dry. Almost a bit like Huvila Pale Ale (similar abv too), but because of these new world hops, it's got that added dimension to it. It's also nice and creamy - that head stays the same thickness all the way down the glass.

My new second favourite beer. In fact, I think it actually runs close to first place with Punk. Punk is what it says it is. I can't spend all day listening to the Dead Kennedys or the Clash - but I do enjoy listening to them when I am in the mood or in between easier listening music. The same with Punk IPA - it's best taken in small doses to really appreciate it. Say once or twice a day. Trashy blonde on the otherhand is much more accessible. It's a 4.1% session pale ale. Alternate between the Punk IPA, finishing off the night (or morning) with a 5AM Saint, and I think the Brewdog portfolio taste experience has been found.

So tell your wife that this beer is NOT for women. Otherwise she might never shut up about it.

5AM Saint

I wonder where this beer got it's name from? A quick check of the excellent Brewdog website http://www.brewdog.com/ tells us that it's because a) it's 5% alcohol. b) 5 different types of hops are used and c) 5 different types of barley are used.  It doesn't however, tell you why the word "Saint" is used. I like to think it's because it's how you see this beer after you've come home from a nightclub in the early hours of the morning (lets say...5am), sick of drinking nightclub generic bottled beer, and you reach into the fridge and pull out this Brewdog beer.

Out of all the three Brewdog beers currently available in Estonia, this one has the most mystery surrounding it. As I just wrote - I had to check on the website to establish what sort of beer it was. Punk IPA is an IPA. Trashy Blonde is a (trashy) blonde ale. But 5AM Saint? The label gives an indication - it's red. And this is a "red ale". Or if you want to use the correct brewing terms, an "amber ale". Also on the label is the most arrogant of all their beer descriptions. "you probably don't know about beer" are the opening lines. Considering that I had just spent ten minutes on their website reading about this beer, I felt inclined to agree. I then put myself in the average Estonians shoes and tried to understand how they would feel. They'd probably agree too. And with that, they'd put down the beer and move over to the more familiar surroundings of Saku and A Le Coq.  It's ok having an aggressive, almost patronising approach when you are in an already established beer market such as the UK - but as soon as this beer is shipped away from it's home shores, then it becomes the strange beer with the strange attitude. Add to that a name that not all will understand, and all of a sudden the beer that wants to be the new upstart in the playground, suddenly becomes the kid that no-one talks to and is seen as a bit of a wierdo.

Fortunately this particular kid sits amongst other non conformists on the shelves of Drink Bar and Drink Shop. This kid has also taken on evening classes in Stockmann where it feels comfortable with the other new kids on the block - especially those strange guys from Huvila, Finland.  I'm getting a feeling that this particular "class of '11" will be the ones taking the piss out of the Saku boys in the not too distant future.

Here's the review:

(Ratebeer.com rating 96). Pours a deep, burnt orange colour. Hop flavours not as apparent as Punk, leap out of the glass rather than the bottle. They just need a bit of rousing that's alll. Lovely creamy foamy head. Not much carbonisation - which reminds you that this is more of a traditional style ale than it's two stable mates. Served at room temperature, the smells of hops continue, with an undercurrent of caramel and malt.

The head remains - always a sign of a good hoppy beer in my opinion (aswell as providing flavour and bitterness, hops also preserve the beer. This is why India Pale Ales are so high in hops - it helped keep the beer fresh and in good condition during the journey to India from the UK). This head also helps keep the aroma at the forefront of the beer - each sip gives you a lovely smell of what you are about to drink. The flavours are very smooth. Caramel, malt, toffee and hops all combine effortlessly to produce a lovely drinkable beer. It's like a traditional English bitter, with a little more hops (five of them to be exact). One of these hops is the same New Zealand hops that's used in their Punk IPA, but because it's paired with some more traditional flavoured hops, it doesn't have that zest character that Punk has.

It's a great beer. In the current "family" of Brewdog beers that are available in Estonia at the moment, I see this as the father, or maybe the old brother to the punk and the trashy blonde. It's got an air of sophistication and experience around it. Given it's name, a halo you could say. It hasn't got that raw fresh edge that Punk has, and it hasn't got that "I look normal, but am far from it" attitude that Trashy Blonde has. The amber ale colour rings true amongst traditional ales, and it's flavours almost match the flavour profile of most ales. Except this is a Brewdog beer - and they don't do traditional. The five hops and five barley malts used allow this beer to have different levels of flavour. At first you taste sweet caramel and bitter hops, then lastly you taste grainy bready flavours coupled with zingy New Zealand hops.

It's a super beer and  one to be tried if you like the othe Brewdogs. Remember though - it's about occasionality. Don't expect to drink this beer in the same situation as you would a Punk IPA. It's more of a rewarding beer than a refreshing beer. Drink it as the sun begins to set and the nights draw in. Or as I mentioned in the opening paragraph - drink it at sunrise when you've just got in from an ecletic night out without the eclectic choice of beer. If you've just got in from a nightclub and you open this up, you know that this is really going to be the perfect end to a good night. And if you're opening up two bottles, then you know that this really is going to be the perfect end to that perfect night out.

Enjoy.

Who let the dogs out?

Just over a year ago, a brewing company contacted me to suggest importing their beers. It's normally the other way around. Especially in Estonia. I arranged for some samples to be shipped over, and arranged an evening with some Estonians to sample them. The conclusion - the beers weren't ready for Estonia. My conclusion - it was a bloody good beer and Estonians weren't ready for this beer.

Fast forward to today, and those beers are now in Estonia. I don't care if they aren't ready for Estonia - Estonians should make themselves ready if they want to be considered educated beer drinkers.  A pretty famous beer writer - Tim Webb, dropped by to see me a couple of months ago. He's touring Europe in preperation for writing his new book "A European encyclopedia of beer" and had just made his way up through the Baltic states. His sum up of Estonia and it's beer culture was that it didn't really have one, and that it suprised him how much more advanced Lithuania and Latvia are compared to Estonia. He added, that he wouldn't put that in his book. I told him, that the sure fire way of getting Estonia to move it's arse, was to declare that it's behind it's neighbours - especially when it comes to beer.

The Estonian beer market is sick. Drink Bar is the doctor.

The brewery in question is Brewdog. This is a brewery that doesn't care much for anything - least of all the bland, generic beers that have smothered the UK market. They are from Aberdeen in Scotland - most people from this part of the world are pretty miserable, but these guys are just plain angry. They produce beers with such venom that people approach them  with caution. These are the brewers that currently hold the record for the worlds strongest beer. "End of history" is 55% in alcohol. And it's served inside a dead animal. They managed to piss off both the alcohol activists and animal activists in one go. I defy anyone to binge drink a 55% beer. I also defy anyone not to laugh when their beer is dispensed through the mouth of a dead squirrel.

Anyway, I decided to take a chance and bring in three of their brands. Punk IPA (5.6%), Trashy Blonde (4.1%) and 5AM Saint (5%) are the champion brands of the brewery, so I chose those to start with. Depending on how they go, then I've got the option of bringing more over. But let's get these Estonians ready first.

Here's the review of PUNK IPA.

(ratebeer.com rating 96). Pours very nicely with a huge creamy head giving off loads of unusual hop flavours. I say unusual, because a beer with this amount and variety of hops hasn't been seen (or tasted) in Estonia before...

It's certainly a taste explosion on your tongue and a scent explosion inside your nostrils! One of the hops used is from New Zealand which gives off a tropical fruit like smell. And it just doesn't end with the smell either - the hops give an almost grapefruit flavour to the beer, which ends in a dry bitterness. 5.6% in alcohol, reasonably strong - but doesn't taste like it. And smooth...silky smooth.

Finished. And just wish it was a 50cl bottle so that there was more of it. It's that good. Incredible amount of flavour that just hasn't been experienced in a beer over here yet. Liberty Ale, Huvila Pale Ale, Meantime IPA - hoppy yes..but not in this league.

It just gives you a great feeling drinking this beer. An even better feeling is giving this beer to someone for the first time. It's lovely to see their suprise when they open the bottle and the aromas come flying out like a jack in the box. It's rewarding to see their face when they take that first sip. It's like when you are a new parent and you show your pictures of your baby to someone who hasn't seen him/her before. You gleam with pride, swell up and say - actually you don't say anything, you just bask in the praise that they give you.

A local came into the shop on the day that we started selling this. We were doing a sample session of the three Brewdog beers. He took a gulp of Punk IPA. Stood for a moment, and then declared that "this isn't beer" before reaching for a bottle of Rock from the shelf.

Maybe some Estonians are too tired for another revolution.